What you need is my harddrive jukebox idea I posted about elsewhere, since that is exactly how I do it too:P Ideally this would be like a community project type thing for DIYers.
Basically your could plug 20+ hard drives into what amounts to holders for the harddrives. You then have a jukebox/cataloguing software like DVD jukeboxes or some sort of virtual drive that keeps track of all the files on all the drives. When you need to access a file, it powers on and spins up the correct drive. Ideally two or three drives could be activated at once. The Jukebox software would automatically handle all of that.
As far as how the connections were made: You could do it a couple of ways. Have each drive with its own SATA connectors that all fed into an electronic switching hub that handled activating the drives. Or you could have it be a phsyical/motorized scenario, where each drive plugged into a custom SATA header that then interfaced with a motorized SATA connector to attach to a specific drive.
This has already been done with tape drives & DVDs obviously, but I am talking about something CHEEEP (the extra E is for extra cheap).
I've posted this idea before, but I would like to see a harddrive jukebox, so you don't have 20 drives running 24/7, just a couple.
Basically your could plug 20+ hard drives into what amounts to plastic holders for the harddrives. You then have a jukebox/cataloguing software like DVD jukeboxes or some sort of virtual drive that keeps track of all the files on all the drives. When you need to access a file, it powers on and spins up the correct drive. Ideally two or three drives could be activated at once. The Jukebox software would automatically handle all of that.
As far as how the connections were made: You could do it a couple of ways. Have each drive with its own SATA connectors that all fed into an electronic switching hub that handled activating the drives. Or you could have it be a phsyical/motorized scenario, where each drive plugged into a custom SATA header that then interfaced with a motorized SATA connector to attach to a specific drive.
This has already been done with tape drives & DVDs obviously, but I am talking about something CHEEEP (the extra E is for extra cheap).
Except that innovation dies with it. I bet you would complain (or a majority of people would anyway) about the quality of the television shows you/they receive on cable, yet the selection of the channels is pre-chosen by the cable provider for us without much choice on our part.
The question is do we want to let the same thing happen with 'media tablets'. When you restrict competition in markets innovation suffers. The claim that the AppStore (made by others) shouldn't be viewed as a natural market because it is a service provided by Apple, is specious at best IMO.
Art isn't born in museums, that is where it dies. If the only art I could ever see was what some curator thought I should see, I think my world would be a much poorer place for it. Just because a majority of people might not 'appreciate' art for it's own sake (ie. the process that leads to new ideas), doesn't mean we can sit by idly and kill the galleries and restrict the mediums that can be used, and not expect innovation to die with it.
Bowing down to the majority, and allowing them to determine the fate of art/innovation/computing are not options for many of us.
I didn't realize there is a textbook ideal capitalism. Isn't that sort of like textbook ideal temperature? Economics recognizes capitalism as one of several elements vital to a stable, modern economy. So I'm not sure what you mean by ideal capitalism. Perhaps you're referring to what might be called "extreme" capitalism, where capitalism is unchecked by socialism and the economy is unstable and collapsing?
Obviously we have reached the point of the discussion where no common ground can be found and we need to argue the meaning of 'is'. My point is that I think it is naive to think that in this day and age that market forces are the sole arbiter to bring about optimal result when there are bad actors. That seemed to be what you were implying, but it doesn't matter.
So what? So does Bic with their razors. So does Nintendo with their video games. Why do you think those barriers are uncompetitive when people have several other choices of smart phones, including ones with larger shares of the market?
If it isn't clear by now why I think that is the case, then no amount of discussion will get any further, after having made my points about the lack of perfect markets, hidden externalities, lock-in, etc. Comparing the relative investment in a Bic razor handle versus the investment in a computing ecosystem...if you can't see that there are additional barriers to easily switching to a competitor, no wonder Microsoft is still where it is.
I disagree. The government 's job is to follow the law and prevent illegal actions. Unless they are specifically granted the legal authority to regulate something, they have no business spending my tax dollars on it.
I would say that the government's role is to MAKE and enforce any laws necessary to ensure the basic freedoms we hold dear. The whole point of this is that it is up for debate as to whether there is in fact something Apple has done that might run afoul of regulations.
What are you talking about? Large computer appliance makers have done this for ages for software they offer through a service to end users. Ever tried shipping a DS game that didn't use Nintendo's tools? If Apple is the one suppling the application store, they have every legal right to place whatever criteria they want on those making applications (with a few specific exceptions).
You are missing the subtlety. You can code your DS game in any language you want, using any toolkit that works with the given APIs. Plenty of DS games are written in various languages, with shared game engines and toolkits that are not provided by Nintendo.
We will have to agree to disagree on the 'they can do anything they want' argument, in so far as whether they should be *allowed* to do anything they want, especially given the various additional lock-ins, exclusivity, etc. that prevent (read excessively increase the economic cost of) the ease of switching.
Not the government's job!!! Certainly not with my tax dollars.
I don't think you understand freedom of expression. It applies only to the government not to private companies. A publisher deciding not to publish your book is not a barrier to freedom of expression. You're free to express, Apple is free to express only what they want. You have no right to express yourself via any private venue forcibly taking the resources to do so from another.
You are making a false analogy again. Apple in this new scenario is Barnes & Noble or Borders or Amazon...not the publisher. And I do think there is a categorical difference between expression, and expression predo
Personally, I think capitalism is an incredibly powerful and useful way to harness self interest and real world motivations to benefit society.
Again, capitalism can mean many different things, and what we have now is far from the textbook ideal. It generally refers to commodities...interchangeable goods and services in this ideal scenario (at least when you talk about the market forces leading to particular outcome). But Apple is creating artificial barriers to interchangeability. I will return to this below. (I am not saying capitalism is just about supply & demand, just that the supply and demand portion is generally referring to comodoities.)
Companies rewrite the rules all the time, for services they offer. For investigators to get involved there has to be a crime. We are a country that has rule by law, rather than rule by the arbitrary decisions of those in power. I just don't see what law anyone thinks Apple violated. This is a separate argument from whether or not Apple's actions should be illegal. I don't think anyone favors allowing the government to implement and retroactively punish people for things that were not crimes when they were committed.
Legality/illegality is besides the point. Avoiding criminality is not the bar we should aim for in our dealings with others. (Hence my argument that the antitrust laws we have do the absolute least they could...) Something doesn't have to be illegal to be regulated. Things become illegal as codified regulations are put into place. But the EPA can certainly investigate the safety of a new chemical. Or the SEC can investigate a particular type of new security.
That is the issue. This action by Apple is pretty new in the history of things: Never has a large computer maker said that you have to use its own dev tools, and that no other dev tools can be used in the process, even if you do use their tools. Especially not after they had established a market.
And again, if it is not in fact illegal, then the only option is to try and educate and provide information to people so they at least have the full knowledge that their choices are being artificially restricted at Apple's whims, and what that might potentially mean for them down the road. Maybe all cell phones should have warning labels on them explaining the various ways that by purchasing this product you are limiting your choices, and that a particular market maker can at any time decide to close the market further (either by completely getting rid of the market/app store/whatever, or by applying some other artificial requirement on market participants. If there is a market change, consumers should be entitled to a refund perhaps and a get out of contract free clause.
I don't think this is the government's job either. I don't support the government going after pornographers not breaking the law in order to bring bad PR and the same applies in this case. If it isn't illegal the government could work to making it so, or leave it alone.
Except, that this analogy is opposite. You are conflating government restrictions on freedom expression, with the government investigating impediments to freedom of expression. I can agree on one being wrong, not the other. And no, I don't not feel that the government should value Apple's freedom of expression equally given the relative individual imbalance of power in the relationship between consumers and producers.
Actually, I think our antitrust law is just fine the way it is. Our problem is we don't actually enforce the laws and let companies get away with breaking the law.
If enforcing the laws is the problem, then I would say that is a problem with the laws. Allowing various other parties to initiate or perform independent analysis, etc. to provide for a more robust enforcement activity. Splitting hairs, I realize. Potato/potato.
This is a bit hyperbolic. The free market does not n
Yes, my mistake in discussing with a lawyer/lawyer-esque.:)
I am categorically stating that in my opinion, it is not good, for consumers, developers, and quite possibly Apple, in case that wasn't clear in my previous post. I am saying that I believe it is anti-competitive, regardless of any legal finding supportive a legal definition of that designation. When you rewrite the rules halfway through the game in the way Apple has, then there is a sense of fairness that is violated, and it will be up to the investigators to determine if that violation of fairness rises to the level requiring further action.
I was furthermore saying, whether it in fact turns out to be found as illegal or not, that shining the light through the inquiry may have benefits regardless of the outcome, by raising awareness, bad publicity, etc.
We have the antitrust laws we do because it is the very least (literally the absolute least) that the lawmakers could do to avert the most egregious of the excesses and anti-competitive behavior from the last century. I doubt many educated people actually subscribe to the idea that we have 'too much antitrust' regulation, besides a pro-forma lip service as paid spokespeople to the industries most likely to be found monopolistic.
I agree that I wandered from the antitrust topic somewhat, because I was interested in explaining why I found their actions anti-competitive, at least in the colloquial sense. Thinking that competition will somehow always get to the 'right' or a 'good' solution when artificial barriers are being placed in its path, assumes that we are actually in a free market, and that information exchange is perfect. The reality tends to fall short however. People might not notice that their choices have been reduced. They may not think they care due to a lack of a nuanced understanding of the issues. People perhaps should not be expected to have to know these details in depth, truthfully, which is why it has been so loudly debated to make an otherwise minority view accessible.
If Ford were to say: "Only English speakers can drive in our cars." Whether or not it is even anti-competitive, there is a real sense of outrage at the arbitrary discrimination involved, and the reduction of our (my) ability to freely express ourselves (myself).
As far as your last paragraph: There are many ways that Apple could have done that besides an outright ban (which I mentioned previously). When Jobs is demoing one of those crappy 3rd party toolkit apps as part of the iPad launch demo, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy. When one of the leading developers of Lua (an interpreted language) game toolkits, is saying they doubt that the SDK language will apply to them, there is some double-dealing going on. When educational apps that teach children how to program are being banned because they too closely resemble an interpreted language. If the toolkits suck then the apps suck, and people will not buy the apps that suck...that is what competition is.
How can an AppStore 'Market' be called anything like truly competitive? The competition question doesn't end at the point of sale of the device. It happens at the level of all transactions.
And at the end of the day, just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good. The fact is that if Microsoft was doing some of the things Apple was doing, people would be up in arms and having fits. While they technically may not be illegal for Apple to do, it doesn't mean they are ok or good for consumers, or even good for Apple in the long term.
The point of a lot of this is to make very clear to Apple the bridges it is burning with this, with the loss of developer good will, and making specious arguments about HTML5 which aren't true (it is the FUTURE...but the future is not now).
Again, this isn't about Flash. It is about Apple dictating what language the code is written in. What if the SDK said 'All code must be written in English. All variable names and comments in English'? That is effectively what they are doing though, by forcing Objective C as the only language, a preparser that allowed a non-English speaker to code in their native language/character set but converted the code to Objective C as part of the compilation process would not be allowed.
Apple could have banned just Flash, or relegated 3rd party toolkits to a separate section of the AppStore, or made big warnings before running/installing, or actually banned apps on merit rather than the tools used.
Exactly, which is why either Wikipedia has it wrong (that antitrust and competition are interchangeable in common usage), or people are misreporting what it is that Adobe is claiming and what the inquiry means.
I'm pretty sure Adobe (and other 3rd party toolkit devs/users) don't care what the semantics of the term is, other than Apple could be construed as acting in an anti-competitive way by saying you can only compile code in Objective C/Xcode, and that is what this inquiry will investigate.
Price fixing, tying, refusal to deal, dumping, etc. are all anti-competitive activities that can and are regulated without the perpetrator being a monopolist.
The final comment of the summary indicates it might help Apple with its antitrust inquiry.
I think people misunderstand that 'antitrust' law really is another name for 'competition' law, and that any anti-competitive behavior may be regulated whether there is a monopoly or not.
This article is just flame-bait IMO. Typical 'I am a great developer, so everyone else should be able to do what I do' logic.
What if the SDK said: "All code must be written in English. All variables names must be English. All comments must be written in English. All code must use 2 space indentation without tabs."
Imagine there is a cross-compiler that takes Chinese/Indian/Russian words and converts them into Objective C before compiling...just so, you know, the user has the freedom to code in their own language. Ixnay on athay.
Yes, it is about freedom of expression and creativity. It is about being upset that *arbitrary* barriers to that expression are being placed before us. I may not have the time or resources to make my creative expression available across platforms X, Y & Z without using some cross-platform tool. And it isn't just Flash...if Apple wanted to ban Flash, they could have just done that.
There were so many option besides banning: Segregate the 3rd party toolkit apps into a separate section of the AppStore, showing a warning, banning bad apps because they are bad.
It is about the ignorance of the majority: The majority of users don't know or don't care that their choices are being made for them. And the tyranny of the dictators: Jobs and Apple saying that Objective C is the one true GOD^h^h^hLANGUAGE. Or the vitriolic HATE of a development TOOL (seriously) because it makes coding easy enough for people who aren't great developers to express themselves in a shitty non-performing way if they want.
I am not saying it is a 'right', or a required freedom, but it is certainly a higher goal to pursue, and this is such a dramatic departure that a vocal minority of people are understandably upset. Just like the 'right to privacy' isn't an express right in the Bill of Rights, but it certainly has profound implications when those rights are trampled.
The constant 'public service' messages about the death of radio I hear on my local stations if congress passes a law requiring them to pay performers for the airing of their works.
Languages change and evolve, even within a generation. Fighting the colloquial use of piracy as 'copyright infringement' or 'drm removal' is a losing battle.
Dictionary.com: piracy 2. the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: 'The record industry is beset with piracy.'
Again, I am having some trouble finding consistency or accuracy with your arguments given the facts.
* The Flash cross compiler outputs Objective C...so I am not sure how you expect that to work on Android which is based on Java though there is the NDK (Native Dev Kit) so I guess it might be possible. * The fact that there are already dozens of Flash packaged apps on the iP** AppStore, at least according to the news reports. * The fact that ActionScript 3 is simply Javascript (just with additional optional features like strong typing which you don't have to use), yet you claim it is a terrible language. ActionScript3 came close to being approved as ECMAScript/Javascript v3 but was blocked by Microsoft.
From Wikipedia: "More recent versions include ActionScript, an implementation of the ECMAScript standard which therefore has the same syntax as JavaScript, but in a different programming framework with a different associated set of class libraries."
* I can agree that as a programmer, the Flash CS4/5 dev environment isn't a great development environment...but it isn't meant to be necessarily (or not as much so for the last few years). Flex is the programmer's environment for Flash/ActionScript these days, with Flash being the one for designers. Maybe game developers still use it that way. And even that will be changing somewhat with Flash Catalyst (Flash designers environment that outputs MXML).
IIRC I think the likely reason is that the Webb telescope is supposed to allow us to see even further into the 'deep field' region, to much higher red shifts, and consequently closer to the Big Bang. While I agree the Hubble has done many, many things besides that, in the Ultra Deep Field sense, it is the successor.
Like I said, I get it: you don't like Flash, or more specifically the Flash web browser plugin, since you are ok with the 'desktop'. But this is precisely what they are blocking with their SDK rules! The Flash CS5 functionality is a cross compiler that outputs Objective C!
And again, I see no reasonable arguments (besides an economic paywall/developer lockin) against doing anything less drastic than a full ban on all 'non-blessed' languages:
Option 1) Only ban Flash plugins and ActionScript in the SDK terms.
Option 2) Allow anything, but put up big warning signs saying "You are using software that uses a 3rd party toolkit or a language other than Objective C, which we feel is less optimal. Proceed?"
Option 3) Segregate the 'bad' language apps into a suburb instead forcing them into a ghetto.
Option 4) Allow 3rd party browsers to support Flash plugin.
Any of these would go a long way to resolving the concerns many developers and users have with this policy.
I am not trying to wind you up, but your opinions don't seem logically consistent, and you never really address some of my most critical arguments:
There are other options besides banning, such as warnings before you install, or segregating the 'toolkit' apps somehow in the AppStore so savvy users must enable it. The fact that Steve Jobs demoed a toolkit (Unity3D) based game at the iPad launch belies the argument that 'all toolkit developed apps and apps not written in C/Objective C are bad'.
Your anecdotal evidence that 'existing Flash apps were developed without touchscreens in mind' isn't very persuasive. That's like asking why Linux, OSX, RIM, etc apps, don't support touch screen when they weren't designed to before touch came to those devices and designers started coding to those standards.
And again, I would rather be the one to decide that some site isn't usable for me rather than Apple.
Sites aren't moving to HTML5, wholesale IMO. THey may be moving a portion of their content to be viewable only on iP** to HTML5, which just goes to show that Apple can force companies to spend money in ways that they otherwise wouldn't (ie. most sites would prefer to invest in HTML5 when it is actually usable on a larger portion of the web browsing devices, but instead are being forced to move to a 'standard' that isn't widely implemented yet and has few mature development tools).
I mean I get it: YOU don't like Flash for whatever reasons, or because someone can abuse the tool. I don't like RTS games...I don't say game makers shouldn't make RTS games though. I don't like telemarketers...I don't think we should ban phones because telemarketers use them.
It is precisely the kind of small audience by high use tool that I mean. I use win32 primarily...it was nice to be able write an app that worked on OSX & Linux for free. It isn't pretty, but it doesn't have to be. Things can be useful while still using a toolkit or not being precisely designed. The long tail of small, free, useful apps is what is being chopped off by Apple's move. I think it will hurt them in the long run, but I would rather they not hurt everyone else with them.
All of your criticisms of Flash are fine, whether they are accurate or not. The point is, as a consumer and a developer, I would rather have the right to choose myself, rather than be dictated to. There are plenty of options before banning: AppStore warnings, segregation, etc. Leave it out of the built in Safari browser, but let Opera/SkyFire/etc. add it.
Whether you can see why Jobs' might like something or not should also be irrelevant to anything other than how Jobs uses his personal iPad.
And his 'principles' have cost him. I am personally aware of a deal where 10-20 iPads were going to be given to users as part of a product promotion, but because of the inability to upload and the lack of Flash, the deal did not happen.
Again all of your arguments are fine, whether they are true or not. (I might argue that the best games on the Android right now are those that use SNES/Gameboy/etc. emulators, which are banned on the iPhone...Or that even if WineLib made ugly/bad products, that Linux might be worse off today without this intermediate step that drew developers...Flash being closed source: The spec is open source, and there are partial open source implementations. Apple could promote/help one of those like they did with WebKit, as an option. Apple could actually help Adobe get its player the API's it needs to perform well (this is one of the primary issues for Macromedia/Adobe's efforts on OSX not yielding the same performance as on Windows.)
The 'if you don't like it, don't develop for it' argument, is the worst kind of logic though. That I have to take offense with. If Microsoft had said 'You can only develop using the Win32 API', if not you should go somewhere else, I doubt you would be arguing that is a good thing for developers or users without using twisted logic.
And again, your logic is assuming that Adobe and ActionScript is the only one being harmed here. It is Java, Mono/C#, Ruby, Pascal, Python, Erlang, etc.... ALL other languages are being segregated to the language ghetto by Apple. It has nothing even to do with toolkits...plenty of those languages were used at one time to code directly to the Win32 API.
And what is funny is that underneath it all, ActionScript is just a form of Javascript/ECMAScript...don't use the strong typing and it is nearly identical. If Apple said, 'You can only use the Prototype/Scriptaculous javascript toolkit when developing for iPhone, not jQuery, or Django, or anything else' would you still be defending Apple here?
And your parting shot about Java Applets? They are banned on the iP* too! Are you paying attention?:P
The problem isn't Flash per se. If Apple wants to prevent the Flash Player browser plugin from working, while annoying and limiting (there are other options short of banning), it is the blanket creation of a language ghetto in the SDK that is the real problem. Preventing applications not 'originally written' in C/Objective C is the real much larger issue here. Don't get blinded by the 'Flash' (pun intended)....this puts all other languages in ghetto.
If they put in 'All languages but ActionScript 1/2/3 may be used' that would be a different scenario that didn't prevent many other languages from being used.
But this isn't about Flash at all...it is about preventing ANY cross platform apps that might be available on the iPhone AND Android AND WinMo7 AND RIM etc. simultaneously, to create a 'competitive advantage' by using their relative monopoly in the App space to lock in developers.
Everyone knows that Flash for OSX has sucked in the past (and release version 10 still does). But if you haven't tried the 10.1 Release Candidate, which Adobe has been working the last year to improve these very issues, then you should.
Macromedia definitely shot themselves in the foot with their OSX releases, but now that Adobe is addressing the issue, they won't be given a chance.
As someone who has developed an AIR app https://sourceforge.net/projects/zeeb/ (I use Windows, but got OSX and Linux compatibility with about an hour extra effort), I find it disappointing.
If you see my application, sure it won't win any design awards but it sure is useful...
It is an *arbitrary* differentiation from a 'general purpose computer', not an actual one. That is the issue.
No one is saying you can create anything with the 'Actionscript cross compiler' that you couldn't create using the API, precisely because it uses the API.
If someone came out with a Ruby or Python compiler for the iPhone API, would you deny a developer with experience using those technologies the right to develop for your platform?
You and others seem to have missed the point that the output of the Adobe product here is something that is entirely used within the existing iPhone OS framework.
Anything that could be exploited thru the 'flash app' could be exploited by any other application. The 'flash app' on the iPhone wouldn't have any special permissions over anything else.
This is not an argument about Safari and the Flash plugin, but about a cross compiler that ultimately runs using the native methods.
Have you tried the 10.1 Release Candidate yet? It is actually surprisingly better. I had the great fortune to recommend to Apple recently that they upgrade to it for a tool I built in Flex that was having issues on OSX because of the number of items in a Datagrid. Problem solved.:P
I am the first to admit that Adobe has shot themselves in the foot in the past with their lack of attention to the Flash runtime limitations on OSX. Obviously the new CS5 tool will be using that new 10.1 version when released, so it is a bit of the goose being cooked before it's shot.
And as I said in another thread: Just because Apple isn't a convicted monopolist doesn't make their actions any less despicable when they emulate one.
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What you need is my harddrive jukebox idea I posted about elsewhere, since that is exactly how I do it too :P Ideally this would be like a community project type thing for DIYers.
Basically your could plug 20+ hard drives into what amounts to holders for the harddrives.
You then have a jukebox/cataloguing software like DVD jukeboxes or some sort of virtual drive that keeps track of all the files on all the drives. When you need to access a file, it powers on and spins up the correct drive. Ideally two or three drives could be activated at once. The Jukebox software would automatically handle all of that.
As far as how the connections were made: You could do it a couple of ways. Have each drive with its own SATA connectors that all fed into an electronic switching hub that handled activating the drives. Or you could have it be a phsyical/motorized scenario, where each drive plugged into a custom SATA header that then interfaced with a motorized SATA connector to attach to a specific drive.
This has already been done with tape drives & DVDs obviously, but I am talking about something CHEEEP (the extra E is for extra cheap).
I've posted this idea before, but I would like to see a harddrive jukebox, so you don't have 20 drives running 24/7, just a couple.
Basically your could plug 20+ hard drives into what amounts to plastic holders for the harddrives.
You then have a jukebox/cataloguing software like DVD jukeboxes or some sort of virtual drive that keeps track of all the files on all the drives. When you need to access a file, it powers on and spins up the correct drive. Ideally two or three drives could be activated at once. The Jukebox software would automatically handle all of that.
As far as how the connections were made: You could do it a couple of ways. Have each drive with its own SATA connectors that all fed into an electronic switching hub that handled activating the drives. Or you could have it be a phsyical/motorized scenario, where each drive plugged into a custom SATA header that then interfaced with a motorized SATA connector to attach to a specific drive.
This has already been done with tape drives & DVDs obviously, but I am talking about something CHEEEP (the extra E is for extra cheap).
Except that innovation dies with it. I bet you would complain (or a majority of people would anyway) about the quality of the television shows you/they receive on cable, yet the selection of the channels is pre-chosen by the cable provider for us without much choice on our part.
The question is do we want to let the same thing happen with 'media tablets'. When you restrict competition in markets innovation suffers. The claim that the AppStore (made by others) shouldn't be viewed as a natural market because it is a service provided by Apple, is specious at best IMO.
Art isn't born in museums, that is where it dies. If the only art I could ever see was what some curator thought I should see, I think my world would be a much poorer place for it. Just because a majority of people might not 'appreciate' art for it's own sake (ie. the process that leads to new ideas), doesn't mean we can sit by idly and kill the galleries and restrict the mediums that can be used, and not expect innovation to die with it.
Bowing down to the majority, and allowing them to determine the fate of art/innovation/computing are not options for many of us.
Got logged out so reposting
I didn't realize there is a textbook ideal capitalism. Isn't that sort of like textbook ideal temperature? Economics recognizes capitalism as one of several elements vital to a stable, modern economy. So I'm not sure what you mean by ideal capitalism. Perhaps you're referring to what might be called "extreme" capitalism, where capitalism is unchecked by socialism and the economy is unstable and collapsing?
Obviously we have reached the point of the discussion where no common ground can be found and we need to argue the meaning of 'is'. My point is that I think it is naive to think that in this day and age that market forces are the sole arbiter to bring about optimal result when there are bad actors. That seemed to be what you were implying, but it doesn't matter.
So what? So does Bic with their razors. So does Nintendo with their video games. Why do you think those barriers are uncompetitive when people have several other choices of smart phones, including ones with larger shares of the market?
If it isn't clear by now why I think that is the case, then no amount of discussion will get any further, after having made my points about the lack of perfect markets, hidden externalities, lock-in, etc. Comparing the relative investment in a Bic razor handle versus the investment in a computing ecosystem...if you can't see that there are additional barriers to easily switching to a competitor, no wonder Microsoft is still where it is.
I disagree. The government 's job is to follow the law and prevent illegal actions. Unless they are specifically granted the legal authority to regulate something, they have no business spending my tax dollars on it.
I would say that the government's role is to MAKE and enforce any laws necessary to ensure the basic freedoms we hold dear. The whole point of this is that it is up for debate as to whether there is in fact something Apple has done that might run afoul of regulations.
What are you talking about? Large computer appliance makers have done this for ages for software they offer through a service to end users. Ever tried shipping a DS game that didn't use Nintendo's tools? If Apple is the one suppling the application store, they have every legal right to place whatever criteria they want on those making applications (with a few specific exceptions).
You are missing the subtlety. You can code your DS game in any language you want, using any toolkit that works with the given APIs. Plenty of DS games are written in various languages, with shared game engines and toolkits that are not provided by Nintendo.
We will have to agree to disagree on the 'they can do anything they want' argument, in so far as whether they should be *allowed* to do anything they want, especially given the various additional lock-ins, exclusivity, etc. that prevent (read excessively increase the economic cost of) the ease of switching.
Not the government's job!!! Certainly not with my tax dollars.
Somewhere this has gone off the rails. Arguing for arguments sake gets us no where. Haven't you heard? Taxes are the lowest they have been in 60 years: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
I don't think you understand freedom of expression. It applies only to the government not to private companies. A publisher deciding not to publish your book is not a barrier to freedom of expression. You're free to express, Apple is free to express only what they want. You have no right to express yourself via any private venue forcibly taking the resources to do so from another.
You are making a false analogy again. Apple in this new scenario is Barnes & Noble or Borders or Amazon...not the publisher. And I do think there is a categorical difference between expression, and expression predo
Personally, I think capitalism is an incredibly powerful and useful way to harness self interest and real world motivations to benefit society.
Again, capitalism can mean many different things, and what we have now is far from the textbook ideal. It generally refers to commodities...interchangeable goods and services in this ideal scenario (at least when you talk about the market forces leading to particular outcome). But Apple is creating artificial barriers to interchangeability. I will return to this below. (I am not saying capitalism is just about supply & demand, just that the supply and demand portion is generally referring to comodoities.)
Companies rewrite the rules all the time, for services they offer. For investigators to get involved there has to be a crime. We are a country that has rule by law, rather than rule by the arbitrary decisions of those in power. I just don't see what law anyone thinks Apple violated. This is a separate argument from whether or not Apple's actions should be illegal. I don't think anyone favors allowing the government to implement and retroactively punish people for things that were not crimes when they were committed.
Legality/illegality is besides the point. Avoiding criminality is not the bar we should aim for in our dealings with others. (Hence my argument that the antitrust laws we have do the absolute least they could...) Something doesn't have to be illegal to be regulated. Things become illegal as codified regulations are put into place. But the EPA can certainly investigate the safety of a new chemical. Or the SEC can investigate a particular type of new security.
That is the issue. This action by Apple is pretty new in the history of things: Never has a large computer maker said that you have to use its own dev tools, and that no other dev tools can be used in the process, even if you do use their tools. Especially not after they had established a market.
And again, if it is not in fact illegal, then the only option is to try and educate and provide information to people so they at least have the full knowledge that their choices are being artificially restricted at Apple's whims, and what that might potentially mean for them down the road. Maybe all cell phones should have warning labels on them explaining the various ways that by purchasing this product you are limiting your choices, and that a particular market maker can at any time decide to close the market further (either by completely getting rid of the market/app store/whatever, or by applying some other artificial requirement on market participants. If there is a market change, consumers should be entitled to a refund perhaps and a get out of contract free clause.
I don't think this is the government's job either. I don't support the government going after pornographers not breaking the law in order to bring bad PR and the same applies in this case. If it isn't illegal the government could work to making it so, or leave it alone.
Except, that this analogy is opposite. You are conflating government restrictions on freedom expression, with the government investigating impediments to freedom of expression. I can agree on one being wrong, not the other. And no, I don't not feel that the government should value Apple's freedom of expression equally given the relative individual imbalance of power in the relationship between consumers and producers.
Actually, I think our antitrust law is just fine the way it is. Our problem is we don't actually enforce the laws and let companies get away with breaking the law.
If enforcing the laws is the problem, then I would say that is a problem with the laws. Allowing various other parties to initiate or perform independent analysis, etc. to provide for a more robust enforcement activity. Splitting hairs, I realize. Potato/potato.
This is a bit hyperbolic. The free market does not n
Yes, my mistake in discussing with a lawyer/lawyer-esque. :)
I am categorically stating that in my opinion, it is not good, for consumers, developers, and quite possibly Apple, in case that wasn't clear in my previous post. I am saying that I believe it is anti-competitive, regardless of any legal finding supportive a legal definition of that designation. When you rewrite the rules halfway through the game in the way Apple has, then there is a sense of fairness that is violated, and it will be up to the investigators to determine if that violation of fairness rises to the level requiring further action.
I was furthermore saying, whether it in fact turns out to be found as illegal or not, that shining the light through the inquiry may have benefits regardless of the outcome, by raising awareness, bad publicity, etc.
We have the antitrust laws we do because it is the very least (literally the absolute least) that the lawmakers could do to avert the most egregious of the excesses and anti-competitive behavior from the last century. I doubt many educated people actually subscribe to the idea that we have 'too much antitrust' regulation, besides a pro-forma lip service as paid spokespeople to the industries most likely to be found monopolistic.
I agree that I wandered from the antitrust topic somewhat, because I was interested in explaining why I found their actions anti-competitive, at least in the colloquial sense. Thinking that competition will somehow always get to the 'right' or a 'good' solution when artificial barriers are being placed in its path, assumes that we are actually in a free market, and that information exchange is perfect. The reality tends to fall short however. People might not notice that their choices have been reduced. They may not think they care due to a lack of a nuanced understanding of the issues. People perhaps should not be expected to have to know these details in depth, truthfully, which is why it has been so loudly debated to make an otherwise minority view accessible.
If Ford were to say: "Only English speakers can drive in our cars." Whether or not it is even anti-competitive, there is a real sense of outrage at the arbitrary discrimination involved, and the reduction of our (my) ability to freely express ourselves (myself).
As far as your last paragraph: There are many ways that Apple could have done that besides an outright ban (which I mentioned previously). When Jobs is demoing one of those crappy 3rd party toolkit apps as part of the iPad launch demo, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy. When one of the leading developers of Lua (an interpreted language) game toolkits, is saying they doubt that the SDK language will apply to them, there is some double-dealing going on. When educational apps that teach children how to program are being banned because they too closely resemble an interpreted language. If the toolkits suck then the apps suck, and people will not buy the apps that suck...that is what competition is.
How can an AppStore 'Market' be called anything like truly competitive? The competition question doesn't end at the point of sale of the device. It happens at the level of all transactions.
And at the end of the day, just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean it is good. The fact is that if Microsoft was doing some of the things Apple was doing, people would be up in arms and having fits. While they technically may not be illegal for Apple to do, it doesn't mean they are ok or good for consumers, or even good for Apple in the long term.
The point of a lot of this is to make very clear to Apple the bridges it is burning with this, with the loss of developer good will, and making specious arguments about HTML5 which aren't true (it is the FUTURE...but the future is not now).
Again, this isn't about Flash. It is about Apple dictating what language the code is written in. What if the SDK said 'All code must be written in English. All variable names and comments in English'? That is effectively what they are doing though, by forcing Objective C as the only language, a preparser that allowed a non-English speaker to code in their native language/character set but converted the code to Objective C as part of the compilation process would not be allowed.
Apple could have banned just Flash, or relegated 3rd party toolkits to a separate section of the AppStore, or made big warnings before running/installing, or actually banned apps on merit rather than the tools used.
Exactly, which is why either Wikipedia has it wrong (that antitrust and competition are interchangeable in common usage), or people are misreporting what it is that Adobe is claiming and what the inquiry means.
I'm pretty sure Adobe (and other 3rd party toolkit devs/users) don't care what the semantics of the term is, other than Apple could be construed as acting in an anti-competitive way by saying you can only compile code in Objective C/Xcode, and that is what this inquiry will investigate.
Price fixing, tying, refusal to deal, dumping, etc. are all anti-competitive activities that can and are regulated without the perpetrator being a monopolist.
The final comment of the summary indicates it might help Apple with its antitrust inquiry.
I think people misunderstand that 'antitrust' law really is another name for 'competition' law, and that any anti-competitive behavior may be regulated whether there is a monopoly or not.
This article is just flame-bait IMO. Typical 'I am a great developer, so everyone else should be able to do what I do' logic.
What if the SDK said:
"All code must be written in English. All variables names must be English. All comments must be written in English. All code must use 2 space indentation without tabs."
Imagine there is a cross-compiler that takes Chinese/Indian/Russian words and converts them into Objective C before compiling...just so, you know, the user has the freedom to code in their own language. Ixnay on athay.
Yes, it is about freedom of expression and creativity. It is about being upset that *arbitrary* barriers to that expression are being placed before us. I may not have the time or resources to make my creative expression available across platforms X, Y & Z without using some cross-platform tool. And it isn't just Flash...if Apple wanted to ban Flash, they could have just done that.
There were so many option besides banning: Segregate the 3rd party toolkit apps into a separate section of the AppStore, showing a warning, banning bad apps because they are bad.
It is about the ignorance of the majority: The majority of users don't know or don't care that their choices are being made for them. And the tyranny of the dictators: Jobs and Apple saying that Objective C is the one true GOD^h^h^hLANGUAGE. Or the vitriolic HATE of a development TOOL (seriously) because it makes coding easy enough for people who aren't great developers to express themselves in a shitty non-performing way if they want.
I am not saying it is a 'right', or a required freedom, but it is certainly a higher goal to pursue, and this is such a dramatic departure that a vocal minority of people are understandably upset. Just like the 'right to privacy' isn't an express right in the Bill of Rights, but it certainly has profound implications when those rights are trampled.
The constant 'public service' messages about the death of radio I hear on my local stations if congress passes a law requiring them to pay performers for the airing of their works.
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h848/show
is the bill that would provide performers compensation parity.
Languages change and evolve, even within a generation. Fighting the colloquial use of piracy as 'copyright infringement' or 'drm removal' is a losing battle.
Dictionary.com:
piracy
2.
the unauthorized reproduction or use of a copyrighted book, recording, television program, patented invention, trademarked product, etc.: 'The record industry is beset with piracy.'
Again, I am having some trouble finding consistency or accuracy with your arguments given the facts.
* The Flash cross compiler outputs Objective C...so I am not sure how you expect that to work on Android which is based on Java though there is the NDK (Native Dev Kit) so I guess it might be possible.
* The fact that there are already dozens of Flash packaged apps on the iP** AppStore, at least according to the news reports.
* The fact that ActionScript 3 is simply Javascript (just with additional optional features like strong typing which you don't have to use), yet you claim it is a terrible language. ActionScript3 came close to being approved as ECMAScript/Javascript v3 but was blocked by Microsoft.
From Wikipedia:
"More recent versions include ActionScript, an implementation of the ECMAScript standard which therefore has the same syntax as JavaScript, but in a different programming framework with a different associated set of class libraries."
* I can agree that as a programmer, the Flash CS4/5 dev environment isn't a great development environment...but it isn't meant to be necessarily (or not as much so for the last few years). Flex is the programmer's environment for Flash/ActionScript these days, with Flash being the one for designers. Maybe game developers still use it that way. And even that will be changing somewhat with Flash Catalyst (Flash designers environment that outputs MXML).
IIRC I think the likely reason is that the Webb telescope is supposed to allow us to see even further into the 'deep field' region, to much higher red shifts, and consequently closer to the Big Bang. While I agree the Hubble has done many, many things besides that, in the Ultra Deep Field sense, it is the successor.
Like I said, I get it: you don't like Flash, or more specifically the Flash web browser plugin, since you are ok with the 'desktop'. But this is precisely what they are blocking with their SDK rules! The Flash CS5 functionality is a cross compiler that outputs Objective C!
And again, I see no reasonable arguments (besides an economic paywall/developer lockin) against doing anything less drastic than a full ban on all 'non-blessed' languages:
Option 1) Only ban Flash plugins and ActionScript in the SDK terms.
Option 2) Allow anything, but put up big warning signs saying "You are using software that uses a 3rd party toolkit or a language other than Objective C, which we feel is less optimal. Proceed?"
Option 3) Segregate the 'bad' language apps into a suburb instead forcing them into a ghetto.
Option 4) Allow 3rd party browsers to support Flash plugin.
Any of these would go a long way to resolving the
concerns many developers and users have with this policy.
I am not trying to wind you up, but your opinions don't seem logically consistent, and you never really address some of my most critical arguments:
There are other options besides banning, such as warnings before you install, or segregating the 'toolkit' apps somehow in the AppStore so savvy users must enable it. The fact that Steve Jobs demoed a toolkit (Unity3D) based game at the iPad launch belies the argument that 'all toolkit developed apps and apps not written in C/Objective C are bad'.
Your anecdotal evidence that 'existing Flash apps were developed without touchscreens in mind' isn't very persuasive. That's like asking why Linux, OSX, RIM, etc apps, don't support touch screen when they weren't designed to before touch came to those devices and designers started coding to those standards.
And again, I would rather be the one to decide that some site isn't usable for me rather than Apple.
Sites aren't moving to HTML5, wholesale IMO. THey may be moving a portion of their content to be viewable only on iP** to HTML5, which just goes to show that Apple can force companies to spend money in ways that they otherwise wouldn't (ie. most sites would prefer to invest in HTML5 when it is actually usable on a larger portion of the web browsing devices, but instead are being forced to move to a 'standard' that isn't widely implemented yet and has few mature development tools).
I mean I get it: YOU don't like Flash for whatever reasons, or because someone can abuse the tool. I don't like RTS games...I don't say game makers shouldn't make RTS games though. I don't like telemarketers...I don't think we should ban phones because telemarketers use them.
I will say, I have developed an application using Adobe AIR, so maybe I am biased:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/zeeb/files/
It is precisely the kind of small audience by high use tool that I mean. I use win32 primarily...it was nice to be able write an app that worked on OSX & Linux for free. It isn't pretty, but it doesn't have to be. Things can be useful while still using a toolkit or not being precisely designed. The long tail of small, free, useful apps is what is being chopped off by Apple's move. I think it will hurt them in the long run, but I would rather they not hurt everyone else with them.
All of your criticisms of Flash are fine, whether they are accurate or not. The point is, as a consumer and a developer, I would rather have the right to choose myself, rather than be dictated to. There are plenty of options before banning: AppStore warnings, segregation, etc. Leave it out of the built in Safari browser, but let Opera/SkyFire/etc. add it.
Whether you can see why Jobs' might like something or not should also be irrelevant to anything other than how Jobs uses his personal iPad.
And his 'principles' have cost him. I am personally aware of a deal where 10-20 iPads were going to be given to users as part of a product promotion, but because of the inability to upload and the lack of Flash, the deal did not happen.
Again all of your arguments are fine, whether they are true or not. (I might argue that the best games on the Android right now are those that use SNES/Gameboy/etc. emulators, which are banned on the iPhone...Or that even if WineLib made ugly/bad products, that Linux might be worse off today without this intermediate step that drew developers...Flash being closed source: The spec is open source, and there are partial open source implementations. Apple could promote/help one of those like they did with WebKit, as an option. Apple could actually help Adobe get its player the API's it needs to perform well (this is one of the primary issues for Macromedia/Adobe's efforts on OSX not yielding the same performance as on Windows.)
The 'if you don't like it, don't develop for it' argument, is the worst kind of logic though. That I have to take offense with. If Microsoft had said 'You can only develop using the Win32 API', if not you should go somewhere else, I doubt you would be arguing that is a good thing for developers or users without using twisted logic.
And again, your logic is assuming that Adobe and ActionScript is the only one being harmed here. It is Java, Mono/C#, Ruby, Pascal, Python, Erlang, etc.... ALL other languages are being segregated to the language ghetto by Apple. It has nothing even to do with toolkits...plenty of those languages were used at one time to code directly to the Win32 API.
And what is funny is that underneath it all, ActionScript is just a form of Javascript/ECMAScript...don't use the strong typing and it is nearly identical. If Apple said, 'You can only use the Prototype/Scriptaculous javascript toolkit when developing for iPhone, not jQuery, or Django, or anything else' would you still be defending Apple here?
And your parting shot about Java Applets? They are banned on the iP* too! Are you paying attention? :P
The problem isn't Flash per se. If Apple wants to prevent the Flash Player browser plugin from working, while annoying and limiting (there are other options short of banning), it is the blanket creation of a language ghetto in the SDK that is the real problem. Preventing applications not 'originally written' in C/Objective C is the real much larger issue here. Don't get blinded by the 'Flash' (pun intended)....this puts all other languages in ghetto.
If they put in 'All languages but ActionScript 1/2/3 may be used' that would be a different scenario that didn't prevent many other languages from being used.
But this isn't about Flash at all...it is about preventing ANY cross platform apps that might be available on the iPhone AND Android AND WinMo7 AND RIM etc. simultaneously, to create a 'competitive advantage' by using their relative monopoly in the App space to lock in developers.
Everyone knows that Flash for OSX has sucked in the past (and release version 10 still does). But if you haven't tried the 10.1 Release Candidate, which Adobe has been working the last year to improve these very issues, then you should.
Macromedia definitely shot themselves in the foot with their OSX releases, but now that Adobe is addressing the issue, they won't be given a chance.
As someone who has developed an AIR app https://sourceforge.net/projects/zeeb/
(I use Windows, but got OSX and Linux compatibility with about an hour extra effort), I find it disappointing.
If you see my application, sure it won't win any design awards but it sure is useful...
It is an *arbitrary* differentiation from a 'general purpose computer', not an actual one. That is the issue.
No one is saying you can create anything with the 'Actionscript cross compiler' that you couldn't create using the API, precisely because it uses the API.
If someone came out with a Ruby or Python compiler for the iPhone API, would you deny a developer with experience using those technologies the right to develop for your platform?
You and others seem to have missed the point that the output of the Adobe product here is something that is entirely used within the existing iPhone OS framework.
Anything that could be exploited thru the 'flash app' could be exploited by any other application. The 'flash app' on the iPhone wouldn't have any special permissions over anything else.
This is not an argument about Safari and the Flash plugin, but about a cross compiler that ultimately runs using the native methods.
Have you tried the 10.1 Release Candidate yet? It is actually surprisingly better. I had the great fortune to recommend to Apple recently that they upgrade to it for a tool I built in Flex that was having issues on OSX because of the number of items in a Datagrid. Problem solved. :P
I am the first to admit that Adobe has shot themselves in the foot in the past with their lack of attention to the Flash runtime limitations on OSX. Obviously the new CS5 tool will be using that new 10.1 version when released, so it is a bit of the goose being cooked before it's shot.
And as I said in another thread:
Just because Apple isn't a convicted monopolist doesn't make their actions any less despicable when they emulate one.
Just because Apple isn't a convicted monopolist, doesn't make their actions any less despicable when they emulate one.
... is pretty good at least. Good presenter and obviously knows his stuff. Sits in a room with Feynman's desk or something at Caltech.